For me, a first time participant to the festival, it was both about learning and taking in the environment at the same time. So whilst I absorbed the sessions, I also took time to experience the Cannes Riviera a bit by finding some nice cafes for lunch and dinner.

Title: The Cannes Beach

Title: The Cannes Marina

Title: Palais de Festival

Woke up nice and early and went for a 5km run along the shoreline and a short swim in the hotel pool. A hearty breakfast followed and the day got going. The festival kicked off Sunday morning in right earnest. In keeping with what seems to be the festival theme - digital is everything - the seminars of that day were about engaging the consumers of the digital age. Speakers shared their insights and experiences from across agencies and the corporate world.

The opening session, conducted by a creative director was about the death of the creative director! A much hackneyed theme but with an interesting twist. The sum and substance of it was that creative will have to move from just selling the proposition to actually engaging consumers in helping them understand the proposition. Quote of the day, “If you have something interesting to say, then do something interesting.” Here’s an interesting example www.gominimango.com. As a postscript it was added that adding social equity to a brand helps! From CSR being owned by the ‘corporate communication’ function, brands have to integrate the social equity proposition into their mainstream brand engagement. I could now see shades of PR creeping into all pervasive brand communication. Exciting times.

The next session I attended was Coke and Sapient sharing their mobile marketing, social media and vending experience and it turned out to be a great session showcasing real work that Coke and Sapient had done in using mobile applications and a facebook fan page run by real men which has a staggering number of fans in engaging their consumers, whether it was about creating your festival greetings card using e-cards or as in India, buy a coke, SMS the code under the cap and get free talk time! To me the most interesting part was how they were trying to convert the “red box” as their vending machines are currently seen as into interactive, sleek, modern vending machines which also acted as an innovative OOH medium. They had partnered with Samsung and BMW design to create the ‘new age digital vending machine’.

Title: The Interactive Kiosk

Not bad considering they have over 3 million of them around the world! Clearly new technologies not only create opportunities to engage consumers in a new way but also offer unique business opportunities. Who would have thought of the vending machine as an interactive OOH platform.

Linkedin presented how to use social networks for business. I was expecting more but it turned out to be half an infomercial on Linkedin and the other half a tutorial on how to get the best from it. I suppose I couldn’t blame them as the original session had a panel discussion and this session must have been plan B. Nevertheless for those not initiated into it or still getting their arms around it, the session may have been useful.

For me the highlight session of the day was by Schematic, an interactive WPP company, which was also involved in the Tom Cruise movie – The Minority Report. ALL the wonderful stuff that you saw Cruise do in the movie is possible now and you can use the hand to move things, connect, share, learn, etc. Based on the RFID technology, motion sensors and meta tags of data, it creates an unparalleled interactive experience. Watch out, the future is already here. This changes how we deal with information overload and trawl through billion of gigabytes of data by one simple thing – the way we navigate through information.

Razorfish shared research that they have conducted (primarily in US) on how media (TV) is consumed. In a nutshell they showed that TV will become mashed up content from the net, broadcasters, seen by the way consumers would like to see it, experience it. It would become portable, and broadcast programmes and short videos from the web will become our line up – based on what our friends in the various social networks are recommending, most popular and our preferences – by mood, time and previous viewing experience. So TV as we know it will be dead but still remain a dominant force in our lives. The research predicted all this by 2019 but I suspect it will be more like 2015!

Ended the day with a nice French dinner with some members of the global public relations fraternity at a small restaurant in the old town of Cannes. A quaint cobbled narrow pathway lined with eateries, somewhat like Chandini Chowk of old Delhi, but a lot more sophisticated. We have to hand it to the French. Cannes is an out and out tourist town with plenty of shopping, eating and drinking opportunities! A perfect place for the hedonist in you.

Learning of the day: It’s no longer about linear and analogue communication but about engaging the consumer across channels - offline and online.

Tomorrow are the first PR Lions and I am looking forward to seeing the shortlisted work at the venue. Watch this space for more.

For those interested in catching the action live from the seats of your office, home or on the go (if you have a 3G or Wimax connection) this year the festival is streaming a selection of full-length seminars direct from the Palais Des Festivals. Each day on www.canneslions.com you will have the opportunity to see the seminars almost as they happen. What’s more, they will be interviewing speakers, getting the inside stories about winning pieces from Jury Presidents, and posting highlight clips of the best of the Festival Programme

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Tags: 56th cannes advertising festival, advertising festival, Brand Communication, cannes, cannes advertising festival, cannes lion, cannes lions, Corporate Communication, international advertising festival, PR Lions, Public Relations